We all can make a “better use of money” case for any non-essential-purchases, but personally, I find it much easier to make that case for YOUR purchases.
I’m not buying into Steve’s statement that “ultimately the physical stuff in your life is a reflection of your life’s inner quality, not the cause of it.” I agree with the “not the cause” part, but I don’t think the physical stuff and your life’s inner quality are inter-related. I mean, drug lords, crooked politicians and child pornographers may have pretty cool stuff, but I have real issues with respect to their “inner quality”.
I believe that the money we get is a direct result of the “perceived” value (as opposed to “absolute” value) of the goods or services that we provide. That’s why rock stars, athletes and supermodels get paid more than teachers, social workers and the folks working on a cure for cancer. If you’re a teacher and you want to get paid more, figure out a way for it to be of more value to more people. Isn’t that essentially what Steve has done?
For me the benefit in Steve’s posting was in my realization that there is a trap in worrying about how other people spend their money and making judgments about them as a result. Bill Gates will probably give away more money to charities in his life than I will make (yeah, yeah, I know…..another limiting belief on my part!) So if he wants to keep da Vinci’s sketchpad on the coffee table of his underground lair, who am I to say he should have spent the money elsewhere. It becomes a useless waste of my energy. I also see the value in adopting a mental attitude that it is easy to make a large amount of money quickly vs. believing that it can’t be done.
Hopefully, people will make purchases that don’t hurt other people. If we do that and then once in awhile, we help someone who could use help, I think we’ll be okay.